Dogma
by AngstyAly
Summary: Charlie's numbers have betrayed him, maybe that's why he can't get his head straight. And Don was only trying to help. Rated T for language and suicidal thoughts/actions.


Don winced as the door slammed shut behind him. The sound echoed through the dark hallways. Why was it so dark? He could see Charlie's dim outline on the couch. Flicking the light on, he approached the still form of his younger brother.

"Charlie?"

The unruly curls didn't move from where they watched the empty TV screen and Don tried again, louder. "Charlie?"

Long fingers tilted a half empty beer bottle into the air and sardonically saluted him. "Don."

There was something empty about his voice, the sarcasm barely brushed over hysteria.

"You okay?" It was the best Don could come up with. It was hard to think when he was this stressed. Give Don Eppes a knife in a gun fight and he could deal with it. Give him a younger brother who sounded like a war survivor... There wasn't much Don couldn't deal with but Charlie was as foreign as the equations he taught.

"It's... It's been a rough week."

Charlie still wouldn't look at his brother but Don could finally see his face.

"Jesus, you look like hell." Dark circles under Charlie's eyes spoke of strain that no word could explain, his hair was lank, and his skin sickly pale under the warm glow of the living room lights.

"It's been a long week." Again that sardonic tone over anger and hysteria.

"Charles? Are you-"

"I'm fine. I'm just fine."

He stood suddenly, the bottle clattering to the floor. He turned to the door, One hand clutching at his hair and still refusing to look at Don.

"Hey." Don caught him by the shoulder, half turning him away from his destination. "Charlie what's wrong?"

"I just.. I need to work. Please..."

Don held his brother firmly trying to look at him.

"C'mon, Hey! Look at me."

"Please..." Don could almost see his brother slipping away into the equations, his eyes glazing over as the numbers took control. But as quickly as the clouds had started to come over his brother, it had gone. "Let go."

Shocked, and a little afraid of this sudden change in his brother, Don obeyed.

"Where are you going? Charlie? Charlie, come back!"

"I just..." Charlie mumbled as the door swept closed after him and Don stood watching in stunned silence. "I just need to think."

* * *

"Dad, Have you heard from Charlie?" Don's fingers tensed around the phone as he opened the fridge.

"_He's on one of those meetings wasn't he? A consultant for the NSA, or one those places_." Don felt his father tense over three thousand miles away. "_Why? What's wrong?_"

"No, dad, nothings wrong. He's probably just tired." There was nothing to eat, instead, sitting alone in the white emptiness of the refrigerator was a stack of chalk on a plate. Frowning, Don snapped the door closed. "When did he get back?"

"_He's back?"_

"Yeah, took me by surprise too. Usually he takes longer to get home."

"_Look, I have to go. Can you call back tomorrow?_"

Yeah, of course dad. Hey, you have fun you hear me?"

The phone closed with a snap. He wished his father were her, and that they were all sitting in the kitchen together. His father always knew how to deal with Charlie.

* * *

Charlie sat in the garage, his eyes flickered towards the scrubbed out boards. They called to him, they needed to be filled.

_Reach your potential._

The words dug themselves deeper into his thoughts. Isn't that what everyone had been telling him all these years? 'Reach your potential Charlie, change the world. Ignore this ignore that, if you study you'll do better.' Only the number's hadn't asked anything, hadn't egged and pushed. No it was him who controlled the numbers.

Or did he?

No, they hadn't lied.

They had betrayed him. They had turned against him, against what he was trying to do. They had told him to do this equation, because it was serving a purpose. He had never seen math used that way. Sure he had seen the lines of statistics and the equations that came from wars and weapons but never before had his blackboards ever...

_Reach your potential, professor. _

Was that really who he was? Had he reached his potential?

_It's a mad world out there, if only people were numbers right?_

He had taken people and he had turned them into numbers, it was his job. It was what he was good at. The variables and expressions strung together to tell the story. Number's were clean. They made sense. They pushed forward towards a bright future.

_You've done your job. You did what was needed. Go home._

How had he done that? How had they taken his numbers and turned them into... into that?

The blank board stretched endlessly in front of him. Numberless. It had length and width, it's color neatly cataloged but empty all the same.

They always wanted more didn't they. It was never enough to just find the answer. You had to stretch them make them bounce around the page. Do acrobatics to fit and work.

It was just a math problem.

It was him. He had done this. He had taken his chalk and he had turned it into an equation and the equation had... had...

_Don't think about it, Professor Eppes. You've done your job._

It was too much.

Charlie walked to the board.

****

Don woke with a start.

For a moment he lay in silence, looking at the lightly glowing clock that Alan kept by the couch.

_One in the morning._

There was a clatter from the garage. Slowly, years of FBI training creeping into his head, he slipped out of the blankets, reaching for the gun that was never far away.

Another crash and he was slipping out the door, almost running to the garage. He barely registered the freezing night air against his bare feet.

As he peered into the crack of the door.

"Charlie?"

His brother turned around quickly. The board he was holding slid to the floor, it's surface cracking.

"Don?"

"What are you doing, Buddy?" Don lowered his gun, slipping a tired hand over his scalp. "You know what time it is?"

Charlie was still looking at him open mouthed. Don looked down, but couldn't see anything extraordinary on his pajamas. "What?" It was then that he registered the smaller details. Like the fact that Charlie was wearing his coat, and the stack of cleaned chalk boards in the back of the room. "What's going on?"

When his brother didn't answer, he stepped forward. "Where are you going?"

"You weren't supposed to wake up."

Immediately Don was awake. There was something in Charlie's words, his voice, but Don's instincts

"Don't try and stop me."

Charlie's eyes were wild. Dark rings surrounded his eyes and it was only now that Don noticed how his clothes were hanging off him. How much had he changed in the week that he had been away?

"What's wrong, Talk to me Chuck."

"_Don't call me Chuck._" hissed Charlie. And Don backed up a step, he had never seen his brother like this, not even when their mother had died.

"Okay. Okay. Here, let's just talk for a second."

"No!" Charlie took a step towards his brother, hand twitching to his disheveled hair. "You- You weren't supposed to wake up!"

"Charlie, it's okay. Just calm down."

And then Charlie stopped. He just stopped. No movement, and Don realized just how much his brother jumped around in the normal course of events.

"Don't try and find me."

And that scared Don more than he had anticipated. He stood stunned, but Charlie was already moving around again. He sloshed a bucket of water over the next two boards and the chalk and ink trickled down, washing away the formulas that he had spent hours on. Don could only watch as Charlie swept at his own scrawl with a rag.

When all the boards were washed clean, Charlie pushed past his brother, heading for the door.

"Charlie-"

And Charles turned violently towards his brother, shoving him hard in the chest with his right hand.

Don quickly recovered, stumbling slightly over the heels of his pajamas. "Charlie, What..."

"No more numbers! No more! Never again." In the otherwise silent room the shout rang out like a gunshot. It's harshness swallowed by the empty walls, devoid of their usual comforting clutter of letters, numbers and symbols.

"Just tell me-"

But Charlie violently pushed him again. Don took a deep breath, but his patience couldn't overcome his tired, overworked mind. "Charlie, I'm warning you."

"What, Don? What could anyone possibly do to me now?" Hysterical, Charlie was screaming at his brother. He took another step forward and moved to shove his brother again. But Don had had enough. He swung his arm to Charlie's side. And Charlie sprawled against the wall.

"What Charlie? What am I supposed to say? Just fucking tell me what's wrong!" When Charlie didn't answer, Don threw up his hands, the gun forgotten in his hand. "What is it that you can't take this time?"

With an inarticulate scream of rage Charlie rushed at his brother, and Don, caught unawares was swept back a step. Clinging to Charlie he struggled, his hands caught between Charlie's body and his own.

And he remembered the gun.

"Charlie! Watch the-"

A loud bang split the air and the sudden lurch pushed him off his feet. The last thing he saw was Charlie's horrified face before his skull cracked against the concrete, drowning him in darkness.

****

Charlie pushed himself away from his brothers body. Not even trying to control his own haggard breathing. He stared down at his brother who wasn't moving.

Tentatively he nudged his brother's shoulder. "Donnie?"

No response. His hand shook as he reached for Don's neck, looking for a pulse.

Nothing.

"Donnie?" His voice was shaking, but he couldn't care less at this point. "Don? Don? Donnie, wake up."

He slapped his brother lightly. Trying to get some movement into the still form. "Donnie, please."

The tears dripped onto Don's shirt, soaking into the black fabric.

_This isn't happening._

"Don, it's not funny. Don, wake up. Please wake up. Please... Please... Don't. Don't be dead."

Charlie collapsed against the wall, trying to speak through his sobs, begging, pleading for his brother to get up. Drawing his legs up he dug his fingers into his scalp. "I didn't mean it. Please don't be dead."

Charles Eppes buried his face in his hands and cried.

"Please, wake up... please.. Please Donnie..."

But no one answered. Someone rarely does.

_ ****_

Charlie waited three blocks before he called Megan.

"Charlie, this better be good. Do you know what time it is."

For a moment Charlie's throat closed, he thought he could handle this. But he couldn't think of anyone else to call. "I can't-" A sob cut him off.

"Charlie?" She was concerned. Of course she was, she was part of the team, his team. Don's team.

Don...

No, he couldn't think of Don now, it brought up the image of him, in the garage, how he had left him. Pale and cold on the floor.

"Charlie, what's up?"

"I killed Don." There, it was out. She knew. He wouldn't be on the floor for much longer. They would get him. They would take care of it. Someone would take Don off that cold floor, littered with the chalk dust of the hundreds of impossible problems Charlie had solved for him.

"Charlie, what?"

"He's at the house. You need, you need to come and get him, in the garage." The garage, with it's comforting yellow glow, a haven from the blood and the violence. Not anymore though, now it would house the same violence that it had prevented in the past.

"Stay on the phone, where are you-"

But he snapped the phone shut before she could finish. He couldn't take any more.

He looked down at the gun in his hands. The metal felt warm in his cold hand, a comforting warmth. Disgusted with himself he shoved it deep in side the pocket of his sweatshirt. He had killed his brother. He wondered vaguely whether he should call Alan.

How would that conversation go?

_Dad, I just killed Don. How are you?_

Or perhaps.

_How's Mexico? I might be joining you soon._

And then he finally snapped. He sat on the curb and laughed. Laughed until it hurt.

_You killed Donnie._

And then Charlie couldn't breathe.

_Don can't breathe_

"I didn't mean too." Charlie whispered hoarsely, but the air swallowed the words as soon as they had left his mouth. He had seen enough suspects say that, felt the contempt he had felt for them, the pity for the pathetic last attempt at a easier trial. He looked down at the bulge of the gun in through his coat.

_Don would hunt you down._

If only he would.

****

Megan saw Don first.

"Oh, Shit."

"Call an ambulance." Colby was at his side in a second. Quickly holstering his gun, he knelt by his leader's head and put two fingers to Don's neck.

"Hello, yes. I need a paramedic to-" Megan looked around at the garage. "Fuck! What's the address?"

He looked quickly up at Megan. "Heart's still beating. I think he's just been knocked out."

Megan collapsed against the doorway. Hand going to her head. "Okay. No, sorry, false alarm." She snapped her phone closed and opened it again. "We need to take him to a hospital."

"No argument there. Here, I'll drive him. You go after Charlie."

"I'm going to call David." Her voice sounded weak even to her own ears. Charlie's phone call had put her on edge, but seeing Don lying prone on the floor had sent her into panic. "See if you can get him to wake up."

"Don, It's time to get up."

****

Don's head hurt.

It hurt a lot.

* * *

**_Well, wish me luck on an update_**

"I just..." Charlie mumbled as the door swept closed after him and Don stood watching in stunned silence. "I just need to think."


End file.
